People are STILL using Office 2003 (Some Even Office XP!! released in Year 2001!!). Released on November 17, 2003, Office 2003 instantly shot to fame because of a very important point. Microsoft started listening to people’s views & took them seriously. This was not evident in their earlier releases. During older times it was: Use it or Lose it Attitude!
Office 2003 incorporated direly needed changes to: Word (reading layout view, document comparison, better change-tracking and annotation/reviewing, a Research Task Pane, voice comments and an XML-based format etc…), Excel (list commands, some statistical functions and XML data import, analysis and transformation/document customization features), PowerPoint and Access (backup command, the ability to view object dependencies, error checking in forms and reports). However, the application to get most attention was: Outlook 2003 (better email and calendar sharing and information display, search folders, colored flags, Kerberos authentication, RPC over HTTP, and Cached Exchange mode & Junk email filter)
Microsoft Office 2003 STANDARD was the version suited for most. It had: Word, Excel, PowerPoint & Outlook. The Four Musketeers got our day-to-day Office work done VERY Smoothly. This was the FIRST Version to have Tablet and Pen support (The true potential of which is STILL to be explored coz of High cost of Touch Screen technology).
Things were going very smoothly Till the Fateful Day: January 30, 2007. When Office 2007 (along-with Windows VISTA) was released to Public in retail form.
Microsoft Office 2007 CHANGED the entire perspective of using MS Office.
Microsoft wanted to give people the ease of use they always desired. but, the good intentions were not received as was hoped / envisaged. The core reason was: People were SO HABITUATED to the Toolbar shortcuts & procedures that they failed to notice that MOST of what they required FREQUENTLY, was placed RIGHT in FRONT of them in the Form of BIG Icons
It has been almost 2 Years since the launch of Office 2007, & sales figures are still exciting our good old Steve & Bill. Office 2007, has slowly & surely crept into the Very Lives of people (Whether they like it OR Not!).
The STEEP Price of @ INR 15000 maybe a deterrent. But Office 2007 is well worth the money. There are SO MANY Improvements & mostly Over-The Hood i.e. in the Appearance section. The Suite is actually re-developed from scratch taking into consideration EVERYDAY USE.
Some visual comparisons will give you an Idea as to how Microsoft has listened:
WORD 2003
WORD 2007
EXCEL 2003
EXCEL 2007
Outlook 2003
New Message 2003
Outlook 2007
New Message Outlook 2007
As is evident from the Images above EVERYDAY used aspects like: Font, Styles, Formatting etc.. have been placed in FRONT. Further Office 2007 uses TABS Categories for Formatting: Eg: You “Insert” a Table. Hence the Table button is In the INSERT Tab & so forth…
This completely DETACHED approach from ALL PREVIOUS Versions of Office will undoubtedly put the user on the back-foot & confuse him/her. But, I assure you, this is a temporary phase & does not last for more than 1 Week. After one week of regularly using Office 2007, I am sure, you will wonder how you ever worked without it.
The Price structure is below:
- Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 Win32 – English -Indian Rupees Rs.3,500 – 4000
- Microsoft Office 2007 Home and Student Edition(Hindi) -Indian Rupees Rs.3,300 – 3500
- Microsoft Office 2007 Standard Edition -Indian Rupees Rs.13,000 – 14,000
- Microsoft Office 2007 Standard Edition (Hindi)-Indian Rupees Rs.14,000 – 15,000
- Microsoft Office 2007 Professional Edition-Indian Rupees Rs.15,000 – 16,000
- Microsoft Office 2007 Professional Edition (Hindi)-Indian Rupees Rs.17,000 – 17,500
- Microsoft Office 2007 Small Business Edition-Indian Rupees Rs.12,000 – 13,000
- Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 Win32 English Intl-Indian Rupees Rs.22,000 – 24000
I am sure you can afford a cheaper version with latest discounts offers etc!!! Anyways, Software & Cost 😉
Conclusion:
Take the Leap & get Office 2007. You will not regret it. Further, Install the Service Pack 2 that MS has released recently.
If you do not familiarize yourself with Office 2007, you will not be able to use upcoming Office 2010 efficiently.
Further with MS slowly moving towards the Notorious Extensions WITH “X” (*.docx, *.xlsx), the older files will be relegated to the Back-Office (Pun intended!!)
